


everything is fine

by reconquer



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Canon - Manga, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Manga Spoilers, POV Second Person, a lil kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1383070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconquer/pseuds/reconquer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re nervous. </p><p>This is nothing new. You’re always nervous. But you’re especially nervous today. You stand with your spine rimrod straight, one fist clamped over your heart and the other neatly tucked behind your back, peering around at the faces you will have to spend the next three years looking at. You know what you’ve done to them, how much destruction you have wrought, but you cannot seem to bring himself to care. That's one big difference between you and Reiner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything is fine

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written a fic since i was 13 hah hahaha ha aha

_Fall, Year 847_

 

You’re nervous.

This is nothing new. You’re always nervous. But you’re especially nervous today. You stand with your spine rimrod straight, one fist clamped over your heart and the other neatly tucked behind your back, peering around at the faces you will have to spend the next three years looking at. You know what you’ve done to them, how much destruction you have wrought, but you cannot seem to bring yourself to care. That's one big difference between you and Reiner. 

You are one of the few the drill sergeant doesn't yell at. Aside from Annie and Reiner, there are only two more who are spared: a dark-haired girl with stones for eyes and a boy with a scowl so deep you could try to swim across it and never reach the other side. You later learn that their names are Mikasa and Eren. Mikasa always wears a slightly tattered red scarf, has a bad habit of picking at her fingernails during class, and it really hurts when her sword makes contact with your jugular. Eren has very nice clavicles, is surprisingly good-natured when drunk, and hates it when you cut his arms off, even if it is for his own good (in your opinion).

Later that night, you learn that Eren saw you kick down the wall, that a rock that you kicked crushed his house and his mother’s legs along with it, that he watched his mother get eaten in front of him. Reiner squirms minutely in his seat and you feel a small pang of pity in your chest.

 

_Winter, Year 849_

 

Reiner has scooted himself so close to Eren that Eren is practically on his lap, laughing and shouting as Reiner attempts to shovel whatever the training camp is trying to pass off as food tonight into his mouth. It’s been bitterly cold lately, too cold for it to snow even, so morale has been low. Reiner appointed himself as group dad years ago, and it was therefore his responsibility to improve the mood.

You’re worried about Reiner.

Annie is little help—she detests being seen with you, and even if you do catch her on the sly, she’d never one for words and is little help or comfort. If you brought up your concern to Reiner, he would either get angry or feign ignorance (at least, you hope he’s pretending). You often wish that Berik were still around.

For now, you put on a smile and remain complacent about it. Later you’ll regret this, you think, but you don’t have the means or courage to do anything about it.

 

 

_Spring, Year 850_

 

The first (and only) time you kiss Armin is the night of graduation. The two of you have become surprisingly good friends the past three years, and you’ve both consumed enough alcohol to have bigger problems than simply being embarrassed in the morning, so why not? 

You have Armin pinned against the back of the mess hall with his back arched and chest flush to yours when you feel a third hand on your shoulder. You hear a few low tones and suddenly you’re halfway to the barracks. Your arm is slung around Reiner’s shoulder and the stars are moving far faster than the ground is.

“Weren’t you the one that told me not to form close relationships with the others?” Reiner asks. You hiccup and bury your nose into Reiner’s neck, hoping it will stop the spinning. It doesn’t.

The next time you drink is after the capture of the Female Titan. The atmosphere is different and there are too many people missing. That night, you drunkenly cry into Reiner’s chest and tell him that you’re scared. He doesn’t know why.

 

_Summer, Year 850_

 

The weight of Eren on your back suddenly becomes too much. You can feel everything—the weak scratches of his fingernails on your shirt, the daggers in Armin’s eyes stabbing into yours, the acid in Mikasa’s words.

“They are a plague upon mankind.”

Your skin feels even slicker than it had before and you feel tears prick under your eyelids. Your feelings for your comrades had been genuine—maybe not as genuine as Reiner’s had, but genuine nonetheless. All the regret and guilt that you had been holding back comes rushing forward, and suddenly you’re screaming, _begging_ them to help you, to find you—

 

_Fall, 853_

 

They say that hindsight is 20/20. It’s not until the metal cuffs really begin to chafe against your wrists that you realize that you are just as pathetic as you always thought they were.


End file.
